Friday, December 31, 2004

I was looking to write something ultra-hilarious that had absolutely nothing to do with today’s date and the change of the calendar that tomorrow signals.

But I keep coming back to thoughts that aren’t very funny.

Okay, actually, they’re not funny at all. The song playing in my head has a depressing chorus, and it makes me want to ingest the weight of my gas-guzzling, earth-smothering SUV in peanut M&Ms and fresh mozzarella cheese.

I’m spending this New Year’s Eve at home; I spent last New Year’s Eve at home. Makes a girl question whether she grew and improved over the year as much as she had previously convinced herself.

If I could change it, I would be less shy, more motivated, more confident, more engaging. I’d be funnier. I would have more control of my hair. I’d be better at saving money. I would always know the current world news. I would wear a size 4.

But if I can’t be less shy, more motivated, more confident, more engaging. If being funnier isn’t possible; if controlled hair isn’t in my future, if I still can’t save money and fail to keep current on world news and if I can’t always squeeze into a size 4, simply accepting myself would be awfully nice.

Do I wear my cute, brown leather, in-my-eyes-not-slutty skirt to my work outing this afternoon/evening or do I roll over and play it safe and wear pants, thus assuring that my bosses won't spontaneously combust at the sight of me?

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Driving home in a warm car, the taste of a Reese's Peanut Butter Tree lingering on my tongue, listening to my favorite song-of-the-moment on repeat. Having spent seven hours of the day largely alone and bonding with The Boy of the Moment.

It was divine, not hating myself at the end of it. Not analyzing. Not planning a wedding. Feet firmly planted on the ground. Knowing that whatever happens will inevitably happen.

When I open a present I particularly like, my response goes something like this: “Eeeeee! [Fill in name of present here]!”

Four times over the Christmas holiday, I could be heard screaming “Eeeeee! Yoga pants!”

I really like yoga pants. Yoga pants are dress-up sweatpants. They can be worn to the mall without the wearer being labeled as an unshowered soccer mom/white trash. They don’t have tight elastic that cuts into the ankles. They’re great for skating. They can be worn to bed when the wearer is too lazy to change into pajamas. They’re stretchy, thus fantastic for high-velocity eating. They’re comfortable. And I’ve been told my butt looks rather good in them.

When your bootie looks good in something, it is only appropriate to celebrate the gift of more ass-enhancing apparel.

On Christmas morning, Mom and Dad gave me a pair of solid black yoga pants and a pair of solid black yoga capri pants. I shouted with glee.

At Christmas brunch, my aunts combined for a pair of heather gray yoga pants and pair of dark gray yoga pants with a pink stripe down the side. I danced a victory jig.

While putting away Christmas presents last night, I decided that I would celebrate my good fortune by counting the number of pairs of yoga pants I already owned and adding in my four new pair.

Pre-Christmas tally:

8 pairs of solid black yoga pants
3 pairs of black yoga pants with white racing stripes down the legs
3 pairs of navy yoga pants
1 pair of magenta yoga pants that I paid, like, $70 for without realizing that they made my thighs look like they belong rooted to the ground in the Redwood National Forest
1 pair of pink yoga pants that I’ve never worn, even though they’re cute, because I’m afraid to stick out in a crowd
1 pair of heather gray yoga pants
1 pair of dark gray yoga pants

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

He might be rotting from the inside out. I’m quite certain that he is, actually.

Max was begging for food with his head in my lap while I was inhaling my post-gym dinner and reading blogs. Max’s halitosis extremeosis wafted up to my very stuffy, impacted with crusty boogers, healing-from-cauterization nose and nearly knocked me out.

I would like to use a simile (or possibly a metaphor), but nothing on this green earth smells like Max’s breath.

Before you all think that I’m a pussy, I’d like you to all know that Max’s breath has always been ripe with rankness. HE EATS HIS OWN SHIT.

You would think that nothing could be worse than the breath of an animal with turd mashed into his molars, but you would be wrong. I swear on all things holy and David J. Matthews, Max's breath is much worse than it’s ever been.

Monday, December 27, 2004

Make more connections. Get better grades. Score the perfect internship. Revise resume. Date a doctor’s son. Put your name at the top of the list. Perfect resume. Schmooze passionately. Understand the system. Send resume to family, friends, strangers, neighbors. Wear the best business attire. Get your name on the door. Know the right people. Climb the ladder. Make us proud. Make our friends jealous.

They’ve never been shy to wedge their noses into my affairs, either. My aunt listed colleges that I should visit; my uncle recited the many perks of an out-of-state education. They ganged up against me, the Christmas of my senior year, to interrogate me on why I had picked the university I did and to strongly insinuate that I was much too stupid to go there. ...regardless of the fact that I’d been accepted before Thanksgiving.

I’ll point out here that I graduated from that university that would be too challenging for me. In four years with two majors, I should add.

After my junior year in college, less than a week after I’d finished my exams and moved back home, Uncle Ed called me.

Where are you interning this summer? I’m not. Who are you writing for? I’m not. What are you doing with your life? I plan to open a business sharpening pencils, Uncle Ed. When it goes out of business, which it will inevitably do, I will work retail. After being fired for shoplifting, I will begin practice as an illegal, unlicensed cosmetologist until I am caught and prosecuted and put into jail where I will rot my life away and wish that I had listened to you in the first place.

Uncle Ed decided that this was not a good plan. He proceeded to assign me to write him an article. Uncle Ed recited me the synopsis of the feature he wanted me to write. He told me who to interview and how to write it. And he told me how his master plan would work. He would take it upon himself to get it into a newspaper. Make it this many words long. Have it to me in this many hours. He was absolutely serious.

I hung up the phone and I cried. I was already angry with myself for not getting a summer internship, despite filling out more than a few applications. I was anxious enough about life after college. I didn’t want to write his stupid freelance piece. Hell, I didn’t even want to be a journalist! I was frustrated and I really, really could do without him prying into my life.

He called the next day to congratulate Meg on a quite prestigious statewide scholar-athlete award that she had won. At the end of the message, he reminded me that I had 24 hours until the article that he had assigned to me was due.

I didn’t write it. I never talked to him about it again.

For about a year, I responded to Uncle Ed and Aunt Louise’s future planning/job ambition inquiries with polite but monotone one-word answers that were punctuated by my leaving whatever room he or she was in. Time has mitigated the pain of Uncle Ed's ambush; in the last six months, I’ve been more willing to have conversations about my future with Uncle Ed and Aunt Louise.

Yesterday was marked by Uncle Ed taking advantage of me while my guard was down. He’s doing the advertising for a company in the field that I’m interning with. Print out your resume and a few samples of your work! I’ll pass it on.

Along with a hell of a lot of unsolicited advice, I’m sure.

I will maintain that my decision to hand Uncle Ed my resume without being held at gunpoint was a stupid one.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

I love and adore my baby sister, Meg. I am so fucking happy to have her home. She is a source of constant entertainment. She’s a companion in Mom’s pre-Christmas slavery. She’s a shopping partner. She’s a live-in knitting tutor. She’s someone to go to the gym with. She’s one of my very best friends and life is just a little better when she’s around.

Meg is just like me and nothing at all like me.

On the surface, we’re very similar. Though we’re four years apart, our faces look so alike that we’re often mistaken for twins. Our interests our very similar and our priorities are largely aligned.

It wouldn’t be incorrect to say that Meg is a lot like me.

It would be accurate to say that Meg is me, only better. The new and improved 1986 model.

This isn’t cutting myself down. It is seriously, honestly, genuinely the truth. Meg is good at everything – everyone likes her, everything comes easy to her. I’m jealous. But proud of her. If I can’t be it, I might as well be it’s older sister.

Over the course of the next dozen days, she’ll find a thousand ways to amaze me. She’ll go to boxing and take head shots from her 6’-5” coach and knit a hat in the same day. She’ll go out in public in dirty sweatpants, having not showered in two days, and strike up a conversation with a stranger. She’ll enter rooms and make her presence known.

It’s how things with Meg work. That's why I love her so much.

When we were baking cookies on Tuesday night, my mom was talking about someone with pulmonary fibrosis.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

In these last 22 years, two months and twenty days, I’ve learned to cherish compliments. For me, compliments have always been few and far between. I’m not brilliant, so I’m rarely told that I’m smart. I’m not stunning, so I’m very infrequently told that I’m pretty (and only then, of course, by family members). I’m not a stellar athlete; I’m not told that I’m gifted. I’m not outgoing, I’m not hilarious, I’m not a strong leader; I don’t hear that I’m bubbly, funny, talented. I’m largely unremarkable.

All of my life, however, I’ve been hearing about my body. So tiny. So thin. So petite. Oh, what I would do for a body like yours. And you eat all that you like? Oh, my.

I’ve heard it over and over and over and over. Somewhere in between when my younger sister grew too big to fit into my clothes and the thousandth time a high school friend commented on the firmness of my abs, I put a great deal of my self worth into the size stitched into the back of my jeans.

And I do know that’s not healthy.

And I will admit that, despite that knowledge, I continue to think that way.

I’m very active. I’m active because I like to be active; it has nothing to do with my weight or my body. Between figure skating, boxing, hockey, soccer and yoga, I know that I have a healthy body. My weight is fine. My body is fine.

I know this. I just don’t know if I believe it.

Here’s the snag: I’m all about food.

You guys have probably realized that I absolutely adore eating; three of my last four entries have mentioned food. I like to eat. I do eat. End of story.

I constantly think about food. Five, six times per hour. Trailing my thoughts about food is the worry about my weight. It’s a constant guilt trip. It’s a relentless nag. It’s annoying as hell. And I swear it’s increasing in frequency. I’m making myself crazy.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

If I'd known how much time I would have to commit to this festive baking, I don't think that I would ever concent to it. But now, in the midst of a flour-covered mess with my gut filled with cookie dough and my mom and sister by my side, it seems kinda fun.

Monday, December 20, 2004

1. Three Christmas cookies for breakfast.
2. Not getting chewed out at work for my little error of judgment.
3. Work field trip that got me away from my desk. For 10 minutes.
4. Baking thumbprint cookies with Meg and Mom.
5. Wearing my hair in a ponytail.
6. Having Meg to go to the gym with me.
7. Amusing email flirtations with Kevin.
8. Pizza for dinner.
9. Overanalyzing the photo a former nanny of mine included in her Christmas card.
10. Tom Brady on Monday Night Football.

Rant my mom replies with every year: “What the fuck do you do? Why is it difficult to you? You don’t make Christmas cookies. You don’t wrap presents. The girls buy all of your gifts. You don’t clean. You don’t cook. You don’t do anything and I would like to bludgeon you with a yule log, you worthless waste of skin.”

This year’s new variation from my dad: “I don’t like to see how stressed it makes you.”

Saturday, December 18, 2004

My nose has always had this knack for spontaneously bursting into The Great Waterfall of Blood.

I get a lot of bloody noses. It isn't the cocaine; I always have. Like starting my period the day I leave for vacation, my nose generally starts bleeding at the most opportune time. First day of class. When I have no tissues. In a group of strangers. Sitting in the middle row of an auditorium. At the gym.

A few weeks ago, I finally had one of those last straw moments. I ruined a white boiled wool sweater. And made an appointment with an otolaryngologist. An ear, nose, throat doc.

My mom is a nurse practitioner, so I had some idea of what to expect. She told me that I needed to have my nose cauterized.

Cauterized? Say what?

Have the inside of it burned so that, on healing, the lining of my nose will be thicker and less prone to bleeding.

Ewww.

I go to the ENT thinking that he'll check out my beak, we'll schedule a cauterization and I'll psych myself up for the procedure when the time comes.

My doctor tells me that it needs to be cauterized. Fine.

And then he tells me that he'll be right back with the instruments he needs for the procedure. W-w-w-w-what?

I wanted to be anxious, but there wasn't enough time to work myself into a tizzy! He shot my schnoz up with an anesthetic (oh, the burn) and got busy. Burning the inside of my nose with an electric-powered magic wand and then with a swab of silver nitrate. Maybe sodium nitrate. I was (am) bad at chemistry.

The highlight of the experience was when the doctor shoved large amounts of cotton into my nostrils, told me to leave the cotton in my nose for an hour and bid me farewell. How humbling it was, realizing that I parked on the opposite side of the hospital.

My first walk of shame. In controlled dash (did not want to upset my nose/call attention to myself) through the hospital, instead of in knee-high boots and a mini skirt down South University on a Sunday morning.

I truly am a loser.

And I have spent the last three days picking pebble-sized, bloody booger masses out of my nose. Because they hurt. Not because it's fun.

Friday, December 17, 2004

But is my job really a job? Technically, I’m interning. On the family tree of Ways to Spend Your Days I would classify my internship as a sibling to indentured servitude; my internship is a very distant cousin to an actual job.

The office I work in is really small. Its size should’ve immediately tipped me off to the dysfunction. A three-person office that needs two interns? Clearly a case of needing to hire a fourth and lacking the funds to do so.

Kevin and I have been working at The Office since September. We go in and do our thing. No feedback. No direction. Sink, little intern scumbags, sink or swim.

We both quickly learned to tiptoe around Carrie, who should love us because we make it so she’s not the lowest rung on the office ladder but instead takes any and all frustrations out on us to make her feel like she’s more important than she really is. When she’s in a bad mood, we’re kind of like exceptionally realistic punching bags for the verbal jabs that she absolutely must throw at someone.

On Wednesday (a day that I don’t work), Kevin forgot to set his alarm clock and got to work two hours late. Not smart.

On Thursday, Carrie mentions to me that “Kevin didn’t even apologize” for being late. Okay. Seems sort of petty and unnecessary to mention to me but okay. I file her comment in the back of my little brain for later.

I call Kevin on my way home from work on Thursday afternoon. “I have a great idea,” I tell him. “Tomorrow, you should bring Carrie cookies or a dozen bagels to apologize for being late. ...she said that you didn’t apologize.”

Kevin explodes into fit of anger. Apparently, he told her that he was sorry for being late.

Three times.

He says that he’s going to confront her about it.

I beg him not to.

He says that he absolutely has to talk to her about it.

I beg him not to.

He spoke to her about it today. Of course. And then Carrie brought up every single thing that he’s done wrong between September and today. Things that Kevin has been doing wrong on a regular basis since September that have obviously annoyed her but not to the point where she would bother to correct him. She takes the whole thing personally and throws a fit. This is typical. Kevin should have expected this.

Kevin also should have expected to get pulled into Frank’s office. Frank is Carrie’s boss. He’s generally decent. If decent is defined by not taking out anger on interns completely disassociated from situations that create your anger (if his brother was in the hospital, for instance, he would not blame us for this. Carrie would. And has.) and by being a strong supporter of Tim Horton’s.

In Frank’s office, Kevin is told that he, as an intern, needs to kiss a lot more ass and read more minds and always be at places at least a half-hour before you are asked to be there because it is important to be a young and eager intern slave who has absolutely no shame or ability to tell time or follow simple directions.

Frank also mentions THE SHOES THAT KEVIN WORE TO THE CORPORATE CHRISTMAS PARTY.

This is not a joke. Frank was concerned that Kevin wore sandals to the Christmas party. The Christmas party with invitations that were clearly marked casual dress. Frank’s response to casual dress?

Sandals aren’t casual dress for a 30 year-old.

Please.

Feedback about work. Appropriate, though more appropriate if coming at the time that the work is completed, rather than in a large bundle designed to humble and/or frustrate the recipient of feedback.

Carrie knows that I brought up the lack of apology situation to Kevin. Because of this, I wholeheartedly expect her to snap one-word answers at me from now until the end of my internship. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Frank calls me into his office on Monday to bitch at me about repeating things that Carrie says to me and to berate me about the length of my skirt.

I wasn’t trying to stir up trouble, really! I was trying to mitigate the situation between Kevin and Carrie – not perpetuate it! And...and...just because you can see my kneecaps doesn’t mean I’m distracting anyone from his or her work. Honest! [Does that sound convincing?]

What complicates all of this even more is the fact that:
a. I want Kevin.
b. Kevin and I went to the corporate Christmas party together.
c. Carrie told me on Tuesday that she thinks Kevin “has a secret crush” on me.
d. I’m driving Kevin to the airport on Wednesday and I’m certain that Carrie and Frank will find out and raise their eyebrows and draw conclusions about such an activity.
e. I would like nothing more for Carrie to be right about that secret crush thing.

I can’t believe that I just wrote an entire blog entry about Captain Shoe Patrol and Princess Bitchface.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Stevie has been a slut since we got him. In our circle, he is known for his bed-hopping behavior; he’ll sleep with anyone who is sleeping. Generally, Stevie starts out a night with my mom before moving into my sister’s bedroom for the duration of nighttime. Around six o’clock the next morning, if nobody is awake, he’ll move back into Mom and Dad’s room. When they get up, he gets in bed with me. When I get up, he’s back in Meg’s room.

He’ll sleep with anyone. Even children. Stevie the Pedophile had no problem cozying up with my seven-year-old cousin Paige the last time she spent the night. The dog just loves himself a warm body to rest his block head on.

Ever since we adopted him, Stevie has spent the bulk of his nights with my sister, Meg. And this is where the problem arises. Meg started college this year. Dogs aren’t allowed in dorms. And Stevie needed someone to keep him warm during the long, cold, lonely nights.

Apparently, I seemed like a willing victim.

Here’s the thing: I don’t actually like having the dog sleep with me. He hogs the bed. There is nothing quite so irritating as sleeping on a sliver of mattress because a skanky dog is stretched out beside you. I’m also not so crazy about having black dog hair all over my bed. And nothing pisses me off like when he wakes me up scratching on the door so the he can get out of my room and prostitute himself to someone else.

But there’s really nothing quite like the tap dancing.

Stevie sleeps facing the wall that my bed is against. He lays flat on his side, his legs stretched out, feet touching the wall.

Stevie must have the most fabulous dreams. In the midst of his dreams, he wakes me up nearly every night. His mouth is twitching, his muscles are contracting and his toes are a’ tappin’.

Judging by the way his feet slap my wall, it’s likely that Stevie is dreaming that he is a Rockette.

Stevie was named after a local sports legend; we probably should’ve called him Savion Glover.

Monday, December 13, 2004

It snowed this morning. I would consider it our second considerable snowfall of the year. There really isn’t anything significant in terms of accumulation, just enough to need to give yourself a little more space between your car and the one in front of you and to feel like you should shovel your driveway and your front walk.

The snow really didn’t do much to inspire me. I was moved by the absolute certainty that my mother would bitch me out if I didn’t clear the front walk. I, despite being a lazy lump of shit and a leech on Mother’s bank account, succumbed to the pressure.

And sort of shoveled.

I took Max and Stevie for a walk and, on our way back in the house, I performed some modified shoveling. It went something like this: left foot, push snow to the side. Right foot, push snow to the side. Small step forward. Repeat.

Our front walk is rather short.

And it probably would’ve been faster to get a shovel out of the garage and shovel legitimately. But that would’ve taken effort.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

I am absolutely addicted to Tim Horton's. I'm there three times a week. Small mocha and a cinnamon raisin bagel toasted, with butter. $2.24. Please drive through.

Where else can you buy a fast food meal that consists of a sandwich (or soup), a cup of coffee and A DONUT?

A donut! They're not just for breakfast anymore!

I think that it's safe to assume that most of ya'll don't know Tim Horton's. It's a is kind of like Canada’s version of McDonalds, except it carries items on its menu that are actually somewhat healthy. ...soups and sandwiches instead of burgers and fries.

So, actually, I suppose that Tim Horton’s isn’t anything like McDonalds except that they exist in plentiful quantities [approx. every 800 feet].

Thursday, December 09, 2004

I am a mere gentile, but I baked Hanukkah cookies today for my friend, Aviva.

[Okay. I have to admit to something: the Hanukkah cookies I made were merely the press cookies that I make at Christmastime dyed with blue food coloring, rather than red and green.]

I'm quite sure that Aviva won't mind that I baked her bastardized Christmas-Hanukkah cookies. She loves getting cookies in the mail from me! Aviva moved to NYC when we graduated and I'm quite sure she uses the cookie care packages to illustrate to all of her coworkers how backwoods we Midwesterners are, mailing silly little care packages to those of us who have moved up in the world.

Anyway. So I made these cookies, right? I put sprinkles on them and everything.

Taking your three-month-old, $700 pair of figure skates to get sharpened from THE Sharpener (the man is very well known for being supremely knowledgeable about all things related to figure skates) and finding out:

Which means:
a. your blades need to be taken off of your boot
b. the previous screw holes need to be filled in
c. the sole of your boot needs to be sanded down and refinished
d. the blades need to be remounted

Otherwise:
a. your blade could snap off at the heel

Meaning:
a. likely injury

What great news! I totally have the time, the money and the patience to deal with this!

Monday, December 06, 2004

There is nothing quite like the feeling of aiding a 50-year-old woman in stalking a 20-year-old, homosexual man.

It’s what I spent Friday doing.

And, no, I’m not proud of it.

The back-story in 30 seconds or less: I met Christine, 50, at a skating competition two years ago. She was nice enough but seemed slightly too fanatical (ex. taking the Starbucks cup Alexei Yagudin left behind as a souvenir) about her favorite skaters. I left the competition thinking that she was a nut. And we’ve intermittently exchanged emails, mostly about skating, since then.

Cut to October: Christine calls me. She’s thinking about coming to the skating competition here at the beginning of December! I tell her that I think it’s a waste of money; it’s only a one-night competition and the skating is never very good. She tells me that she’s coming anyway.

Cut to November: Tell Christine, via email, that she can’t stay at my house. I invent a strange excuse instead of telling her why I really don’t want her at my house. The real reason is, of course, that it would be reallyfuckingsuper strange. And that I would rather not spend every hour of every day of a four-day trip with her. In aforementioned email, I type the following sentence: “we're going to have to put you up in a hotel.”
Translation: “how about you and I put our heads together and find a hotel that is in a good location?”
Definitely does not translate to: “I’m paying for your hotel room!”
And yet I do.

Cut to this weekend: I become Christine’s personal chauffeur. I pick her up at the airport on Thursday night, take her to dinner, bring her to the hotel. The hotel that I’m paying for even though she’s an adult professional and I’m an out-of-college-for-six-months intern.

On Friday, I want to go shopping; Christine wants to go to the skaters’ hotel. Do I know where the skaters are staying? No. Does she? No.

We go to the arena where the competition was to be held. I stayed in the car, she “investigates.”

Stalks, more like.

Whatever. Somehow, Christine figures out where the skaters are staying. We go there, grab lunch at a nearby restaurant and when we’re through, I drop her off at the hotel.

She spends a few hours there, talks to her most favorite skater and is then audacious enough to stay at the hotel so she can talk to the poor kid again when he comes downstairs to leave for the competition. Why do people not know when enough is enough?

The rest of the weekend with Christine was’t much better. After I got roped into paying for her hotel room, after her insistence that we stalk, I really wanted nothing to do with her. But she was here and I am spineless, so we spent Saturday together. I was miserable, but I don’t think that she noticed. On Sunday, I drove her to the airport.

This mistake will not be one that I make again.

I’m too good at letting people walk all over me.

I’m too inexperienced at saying no.

No is what I needed in October. No is what I needed in the hotel room mix-up. No is what I needed when Christine put me in the uncomfortable situation of delivering her to harass a gay kid who happens to skate well.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

I spend every day hiding behind my hair. I was blessed with quite the mane of strawberry blonde, curly hair; I hide in it. When my hair is in its curly, unruly prime, it curtains 50% of me from scrutiny.

Scrutiny that I feel but never hear. Scrutiny that I suspect but never confirm.

Glances in my direction are attributed to glaring imperfections. My appearance is like a car accident -- horrific and nauseating and impossible to keep one's eyes off of.

I can't look people in the eye.

I resent feeling as though I cannot leave the house without putting on makeup.

I would like to pull my hair back, it gets itchy when it lays on my face all day, but I don't. I can't. I hide behind my hair.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Uncertainty:I might have been illegally playing on an over-30 women’s soccer team.
I might be eight years away from being eligible for aforementioned over-30 women’s soccer team.
I might have more soccer experience than the rest of my teammates on my over-30 women’s soccer team PLUS whatever over-30 women’s soccer team we happen to be playing on any random night.
I might be in what is considered very good shape for a 20-something and AMAZING ACT OF GOD AND ALL THINGS HOLY for a 30-something.

Certainty:I am not playing to be the best in the league.
I purposely try not to score many goals.
I do not play defense with any sort of strategy.
I am playing for a team that has won two (2!) games in its 11 months of existence.
I do not coach my teammates.
I stand around when I don’t feel like running back to play defense.

Dear Dirty Skank Team that has a Problem with my Age,

Fuck all of you. For the first time in five fucking years, I was enjoying soccer. I was playing soccer for fun and making my intentions pretty motherfucking blatant. Had I been trying to outplay any one of you, you would still have the Astroturf burns on your cottage-cheese thighs and the bruises up your back. I guarantee that I would have made you forget your own name and remember mine forever.

I'll be coaching my team now. Prepare to be combing blood out of your pubic hair.

Tootles,
Your worst, oh-so-young nightmare

p.s. Lady who asked me how old I was and prefaced it with, "I'm just wondering, it's not like we care" YOU CAN ROT IN HELL AND/OR ASPIRATE IN ROSANNE BARR's VAGINA YOU SHITMOUTHED LIAR.

Turn down the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, boys and girls, because if you listen really closely, you can hear me sniffling from your little corner of the Internet.

Why is it that busy, important weekends attract germs like Max's mouth to his own shit? I get sick once a year. In the midst of the busiest, absolute most inconvenient week to be ill. Always. Of course. It's very typical.

Last year, it was Christmas/Florida vacation/way too much time with my family week. This year, it’s a freelance a skating event/visitor from Oregon/Nutcracker performance/weekend update/NFL game that happens to be the first professional start for the quarterback of my college team who I happened to have a class with who I happen to be in love with/yoga/work on Sunday morning/hockey practice week.

Hi. I'm A.

Born, raised, educated in the Midwest, I am such a Midwesterner. So Midwestern, if you will.

I am: a blogger of 8+ years, forever searching for my next athletic challenge, hopelessly overscheduled and always, always eating.

I started So Midwestern right after I graduated from college, hoping to chronicle my transition to adulthood. Graduate school, four half marathons, two new nephews, three apartments, a trip to Africa, a sprinkle of heartbreak, dozens of unfinished knitting projects, four turns as a bridesmaid, 8,913 job applications and two full-time positions later: I’m fairly convinced that the day when I feel like a legitimate, full-fledged grownup will never come. So I’ll just keep on blogging.

I write about a little bit of everything and a lot of nothing. Toss my ramblings with a few pictures, a touch of swearing and an endless appreciation for the beauty that is David Beckham and you have So Midwestern. Welcome.